Fighting Media Consolidation

Today absentee corporations own more and more of our news media. Focused only on the bottom line, they’re cutting journalists and gutting newsrooms nationwide. And many of these corporations are dodging the FCC’s ownership rules to snap up more outlets and create monopolies in markets throughout the country.

The more independent outlets a community has, the more different viewpoints will be presented. The reverse is just as true. The FCC needs to close the ownership loopholes that have enabled this runaway consolidation, and it needs to craft policies that would boost ownership among women and people of color.

Consolidation has also long run rampant in the cable and broadband industries, where companies like Comcast would rather spend billions to kill off their competitors than improve their service or build out their networks to unserved and underserved communities. Meanwhile, the soaring price of home internet access continues to strand too many people — in particular, low-income people of color — on the wrong side of the digital divide.

Free Press pushes the FCC to promote competition and hold media and technology companies accountable to the public interest.

Blog Posts

This Thursday, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and the other Republican commissioners are likely to vote to strike down the Net Neutrality protections and break the open internet. Congress has the power to reverse this decision.

Press Releases

WASHINGTON — On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission is expected to approve the deceptively named “Restoring Internet Freedom Order” in a party-line vote, dismantling the agency’s Net Neutrality rules, abdicating FCC authority over internet service providers and clearing the way for blocking, throttling and discrimination by the nation’s largest phone and cable companies.

WASHINGTON — On Monday, the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission released a draft “Memorandum of Understanding” (MoU) on the ways the two agencies will allegedly work together to protect internet users after the FCC guts the open-internet protections in a vote on Dec. 14.

WASHINGTON — A coalition of Net Neutrality advocates plan a large protest outside Federal Communications Commission headquarters on Dec. 14 before the agency votes later that morning on Chairman Ajit Pai’s proposal to undo the open-internet protections. The Net Neutrality Wake-Up Call Rally is hosted by Voices for Internet Freedom, a coalition of groups focused on the digital rights of communities of color.

This filing documents the meeting between Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood and Kate Black, a policy adviser in Commissioner Rosenworcel's office. The discussion addressed the agency's order gutting local broadcast-ownership rules and a set of proposals designed to devastate the Lifeline program.

For the past three years, American Commitment, a small nonprofit with ties to the donor network spearheaded by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, has been actively opposing Net Neutrality with social media, commentaries and a little-known coalition whose members include other Koch nonprofits and prominent conservative groups.

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When you turn on the nightly news, you expect to find competing viewpoints and different perspectives from one station to the next. But in communities across the country, stations that were once fierce competitors have cut staff and merged their newsrooms, in many cases airing the same content on multiple stations in the same market. You can try to change the channel, but all you'll see is the exact same newscast.

There are many reasons the scandal engulfing Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. has riveted public attention around the world. It's a story that features all of the classic elements: crimes, betrayal, abuse of power and even a cover-up.

Freepress.net is a project of Free Press and the Free Press Action Fund. Free Press and the Free Press Action Fund do not support or oppose any candidate for public office. We are nonpartisan organizations fighting to save the free and open Internet, curb runaway media consolidation, protect press freedom, and ensure diverse voices are represented in our media.